Mainland scam fraudster arrested

The Judiciary Police (PJ) has arrested a mainland Chinese resident for involvement in phone scams across China.

The mainland police had informed PJ of a case related to the suspect, who was said to be involved in phone scams in which criminals pretended to be mainland government officers.

The suspect, who was arrested at the immigration checkpoint of the Macau Border Gate to Zhuhai, had reportedly scammed victims out of RMB540,000.

An investigation by the mainland police revealed that the criminals went through 14 steps to transfer the money obtained from such schemes, and that they had used some banks and ATMs with Macau IP addresses.

PJ seized more than 1,200 mainland bank cards from the suspect’s apartment at R. de Coimbra. 36 of the cards corresponded to approximately RMB100,000 out of the aforementioned total of RMB540,000.

The suspect has confessed to the crimes and has been transferred to the prosecuting authorities, having been charged with fraud and money laundering.

The police forces of Guangdong and Macau met recently in Guangdong province to discuss their cooperation for the year. They agreed that telecommunication scams, together with financial crimes, would be their key targets in 2018.